Wait For Me In The Stars
by eat.pray.laugh.love.swim.read
Summary: What if Peeta hadn't been tortured and taken to the Capital in the last book? What if Gale was jealous of Peeta's attention from Katniss? What if she had to undercover to stay alive? What if Snow still found her and she was tortured? What if Finnick and Boggs and Prim were still alive? All shall be revealed in this Hunger Games fanfic. ****OC WARNING!****
1. Before

Chapter 1 Katniss POV

Extreme Pain. But then I see a bright light and a soft, light voice floating towards me. A hand  
that feels like silk brushes my cheek and I turn to the source to find a heavenly imitation of Peeta looking back at me with his beautiful bright blue shining eyes. Then the intense pain returns and I feel like I am drowning…..

Haymitch's POV

Peeta stood over Katniss, not believing what he saw. She was covered from head to toe in broken limbs, bruises, and had a concussion. He had been so close to saving her, grabbing her, pulling her away from that lightning tree before it blew up. All he saw was her with her bow in hand pointed towards the sky with the wire Beetee invented wrapped around her arrow. "Katniss no!" he yelled, running towards her, even though he knew that he would never reach her in time. Now he was regretting in his first Games how he had let her amputate his leg, causing him to lose it to a prosthetic.

He blamed his prosthetic leg for not being able to reach her in time, and now here he was, standing over her in a hospital, her baring all the injuries while he was off ok. Only a broken leg and minor head injury. Mentally he cursed himself. That should be me. It should be me lying there in pain, not her. He wiped away a stray tear on his cheek before pulling himself tighter and walked out to meet Katniss' family, who was waiting just outside her hospital room. But they weren't there. It was just Gale standing there, with an angry grimace on his face.

The minute he saw Peeta, he pushed himself off the wall where he was lying, and walked over to Peeta, pure anger written all over his face. He shoved Peeta against a wall, causing him to lose his balance and fall hard against the concrete wall, banging his head and knocking him unconscious. The last thing Peeta remembered was Gale walking away into a shining glob of light.


	2. Found lying there

**Prim's POV**

My mom and I run down the hall to see Katniss and say hi to Peeta when we see Gale running the opposite direction. _Why?_ I think. Then we find the reason why. Peeta. He is lying on the ground, his head injury flowing blood, causing the pristine clean white hospital floor tiles to look like a battlefield zone.

**Peeta's POV**

I wake up and the first thing I register is the fact that I am tied down to my hospital bed and feeling like a truck just ran me over. Then I see the cameras, mounted like vultures around the corners of my room, making me feel extremely uncomfortable. Now I look up and see the light grey eyes of Katniss Everdeen looking back at me. "Peeta!" she practically screams. She throws her arms around me and gives me a big hug. "Hey there Katniss, don't hurt the poor boy." I hear a deep voice say. Haymitch! I look for the source and find him leaning against the far wall to my right. He smiles at me, obviously drunk by the way his smile tips and the way he can't walk in a straight line when he pushes himself off the wall and tries to make his way over. _Tries_ is the operative word there. But I notice that he won't look me in the eye.

I look over Katniss as Haymitch rises my bed with a switch. (He is still not making eye contact with me!) She looks better than before, her arm is still in a cast and her eyes and face and arms are still colored and flowing with multiple sizes and colors of bruises, but if she can walk she is doing better. She smiles at me, revealing the radiance I see on her face every time she breaks into a smile, which is very, _very_ rare. Usually she scowls or makes her face look like she doesn't care about whatever is going on. Rarely do I, nor anyone else for that matter, ever see emotion on Katniss Everdeen's face.

She brushes the hair off my face and gives me a light kiss on the nose, and whispers in my ear, "Don't do that again. You scared me. Oh, and remember, I love you." She pulls back and smiles at me once more before walking out of the room through a door I didn't see anymore. Haymitch walks over to the near-invisible door and opens it and peeks his head through it, sweeping his head from side to side, like he's looking for someone. Through my rusty, dry throat I croak, "Why are you doing that?" Haymitch whips his head around and makes eye contact with me for the first time today.

He hurries over after closing the door and hitting a small blue button on the wall. The cameras in the corners of the room instantly turn off, I can tell by the way they drop the body of the camera itself. Haymitch drags up a chair and helps me get out of my bed and into the chair he retrieved. I am a bit wobbly, but he is surprisingly steady for someone who drinks and sleeps pretty much the whole day.

He drags up a second chair for himself and settles himself into it. For a moment he just stares before he fills me in on what happened in the 2 months I was in a coma. "Ok", he says. "In the first month you were out we had to move the whole district from 12 to 13 because The Capitol destroyed it with firebombs. Only two people died. Gale died helping Ripper over the fence and your mother died helping your younger sister out of bed." I just stare at him. Younger sister? "I only have brothers," I say, clearly confused. Haymitch laughs. "Not anymore. Your mom and older brother John found a small baby girl in the alley behind your bakery 4 days before the district was destroyed. Her blanket was caught in the cradle, and your mom was burnt to death trying to free it. We found the little girl afterwards, crying loudly because she was very hungry and believe it or not, cold. We brought her to your dad and he said that they named the little one Sky. Her full name is Sky Hope Mellark. She is currently in the hospital receiving medical help because her lungs were full of smoke. We can go see Sky if you want."

I just stare at him. So first of all I have a younger sister. Yikes. But now I know why Katniss had so much emotion. Gale was her best friend and almost brother in a way. Now he is dead and I am the only one she has left from home. Haymitch told me that her mom went to District 2 after Prim died of Yellow Fever a month before now. I feel sorry for her. Most of my family is alive and well while her sister, best friend and father are dead. Now I know why she clung to me like I was a lifesaver.

I am all she has left.


	3. Torn down

I stare through the window in the children's wing of the hospital. My little sister Sky is in there, struggling for her life. My head starts to spin and hurt, so I slide down the wall and rest on the floor. _I have a little sister._ I still can't comprehend the thought. Katniss lost a little sister and I got one. The irony. I get up and slowly make my way back to my room, where I collapse and fall asleep in seconds.

Later that night, I hear screaming. I bolt up in bed, my blood chilled. There is only one person that I know that screams like that. Katniss. I throw on a robe and rush out of my room, running full speed to 12ED, where Katniss is. I bang through the door and find her lying on the ground, rolling and covering her ears like she did when the Jabberjays attacked her and Finnick in the clock arena. I hurry over to her and bend down. "Katniss? Katniss! Wake up! It's only a nightmare. Only a nightmare." I pull her into my arms like I did after the invisible wall that separated us in the 75th Games. Within seconds her eyes fly open, and she struggles with an unseen force. I hold her tightly. "Katniss it's Ok, it's Ok, it was just a nightmare." She looks up at me suddenly, and she unexpectedly buries her face in my chest. She starts to sob. "Peeta, it was Prim. She was screaming for me. I tried to get to her… and she…she died before I could get there! Then she turned into Rue… Rue… I'm sorry I couldn't save you! I'm sorry, so sorry…" She just keeps crying and I stay there until her tears are a thing of the past. But her nightmares aren't.

I go to get up. I hug her and start to leave when her voice stops me in my tracks. It is mostly what she said to me. "Peeta, will… will you stay with me tonight?" I sense the vulnerability in her voice and smile, knowing that she would hate the sound of her pleading at me for a comfort against nightmares. I turn and tell her, "Sure Katniss. I'll stay with you. But no complaining when the guards come in tomorrow and you say it was my idea." She smiles briefly and I smile back in return.

**Plutarch's POV**

Peeta comes in while I am discussing Gale's escape with President Coin and Boggs. I turn and find Peeta do a double take. He looks straight at me. "What do you mean Gale's escape? I thought you said her died in the bombings!" He shouts, clearly angry at the thought of not being informed news about Gale. I take a deep breath, battling the irritation at someone yelling at me off. "Peeta," I say, in a careful voice. "We just received news from our Capitol spies that Gale was not killed in the firebomb free-for-all. He was captured and taken to the Capitol shortly after Katniss and you reunited. We were discussing his escape after a few minutes ago, when this came on." He points toward a blank wall where suddenly The Capitol seal appears, the anthem faintly in the background.

Suddenly I am looking into the snaky eyes of President Snow, who is holding a syringe. The camera zooms out, letting us part of the room. Gale is strapped to a table fighting the restraints. He looks straight into the camera, and starts to yell. "Katniss? Katniss I just want you to know that the day of The Reaping, when I was going to tell you something, it was a confession. Katniss, I love you!" In the background, you hear Snow curse. The camera zooms out even more to reveal Gale lying in a gray room, walls bare except for a single, lone TV screen, which is glowing softly with The Capitol seal on it.

Snow suddenly walks over to Gale, and smiles, his puffy lips wide open. "Katniss, I know you are there. You see this? It is tracker jacker venom. It will twist reality into fiction." He plunges the needle into Gale's arm, just as the TV screen shows the clip of when Gale was whipped when he accidentally brought a wild turkey to The Head Peacekeeper's mansion. Katniss ran in front of him, resulting in getting whipped also, but across the face instead.

Gale's eyes go crazy, and he starts to yell. "No! NO! She tried to kill me!" Snow turns to the camera and smiles. "Who tried to kill you?" Gale turns toward the camera. "KATNISS!"

At that moment, Katniss bursts in, already sobbing like crazy. She runs to Peeta, her head buries itself in his shirt. "Gale… he's… he's… alive… but, but…. he hates me!" He wraps his arms around her, while silent tears run down my face too. The TV screen suddenly stops, the glowing fades away. The silence is ringing in my ears.

I walk over to them carefully, and put my hand on her shoulder. She looks up at me through a waterfall of tears. I smile a bit and stroke her hair. "Katniss," I say softly. "We are going to get Gale out of there."

She looks hopeful. "Really?" she asks in a small voice. I smile. "Really." I answer.


	4. Bomb!

**Katniss' POV**

That night, I lock Peeta in my room. Not like in a creeper stalker way, just I need him to help me maintain my sanity until the next day. We sit huddled together underneath the thin gray blankets District 13 provides us. Peeta strokes my hair. "You OK now Katniss?" I look up at him. "Yeah, you can go." He hesitates, not certain to stay or leave. I nudge his leg with my hip and a little laugh. "I don't always need a bodyguard!" He laughs a bit too, goes to shower in my bathroom. When he's done, the only thing different about him is that his usually blond curly hair is lying straight out because of the hot water he used. He look so ridiculous, that I suddenly burst out laughing. He turns to me. "What?" He asks in a defensive voice. That only makes me laugh harder.

I push him out of my room. "Go!" I urge him. He gives me one last half-smile before he closes the door behind him. I close my eyes and wait for the sound of the reassuring click, signaling the door is now completely closed. But it never happens. This is what happens:

The door bursts open, and Peeta is standing there, fear in his eyes. "Katniss Go! Go Katniss! Run! R-"

BOOM! He cut off by the explosion by the door, knocking us both to the ground. I feel my hair billow out and scream as I hit the ground. A sudden clang hits my legs and I scream again. I am trapped underneath a heavy metal pipe that fell from the ceiling. "Peeta? Peeta? PEETA!?" I call franticly. I hear a shuffling and a groan, like someone trying to move something. "Peeta?" I hear a loud scratching noise. Then footsteps. "Katniss? Katniss are you OK? KATNISS?!" he yells, overwhelmed at the possibility that I could be lying dead beneath the rubble of the once 'my room.'

"Katniss? Oh my goodness Katniss are you ok?" I smile wanly. "A bit Peeta. My leg and arm hurt and my wrist and ankle are bleeding really badly." He tries to lift the pipe on my legs, and it takes him about a minute to do so. He carries me farther back into the demolished room before setting me down. I bite my breath as he puts me down, grinding my teeth to contain the screech of pain that is threating to choke me. Peeta looks at me with fear in his eyes. "Are you ok? Are you ok? Are you _seriously_ telling me you are ok?" I have to smile and laugh, but it hurts me to do so.

He tucks a blanket around my most severe wounds, but within seconds a crimson stain blots the gray covering, right in the middle. He kisses me and smiles when he pulls back. "I'll be right back I'll make sure the coast is clear and then go find medical help." He sneaks off into the rubble, brandishing a piece of the pipe that had fell on me just moments before.

Within record time he returns, with a team of medical personnel. They try to lift me onto a stretcher, but I struggle. "Peeta?" he appears at my side in seconds. I smile. "Can you help me get to the hospital?" he looks at me. "Ok."

One of the nurses steps forward. "Miss. Everdeen, I highly suggest you lie down on the stretcher because-" I cut him off. "Sir, I will be fine. Mr. Mellark", it feels weird to call him that!, "will help me there." The nurse nods uncertainly. "If you insist Miss. Everdeen."

Peeta picks me up, one hand under my backand the other holding up my knees. I sigh contently and snuggle up against his chest. I can feel him tighten his grip on me a little, and I suddenly feel guilty. He does all this and more for me and I just push him away. I hurt him. I scar his love for me right? No. Peeta is ever faithful. He never gives up. I guess that is one of the reasons why I love him so much. And the fact that he saved my life and my family's and Gale's when he volunteered for him in The Games. _Gale…who we had thought died but now is much worse off…. _I shake my head, causing the world to spin out of control.

**Peeta's POV **

I carry her to the Hospital, where I sat by her side until she falls asleep. Knowing that she'll call me a creep if she wakes up and I'm watching her, I get up slowly and walk out of her room, memorizing where it is and what number the room is. _214, 214, 214, 214_. I think. Then I walk down the hallway, into the elevator and hit the _Lobby_ button. The elevator goes down, and hits The Lobby.


	5. Author's Note

**The last update I got said that the person (They shall remain nameless) didn't understand what this story was all about. So I can tell you.**

**Gale was aid to be killed in the District 12 fire bomb raid, but he was actually taken by President Snow. The remaining people of 12 didn't find his body. They only knew what Ripper said. She said that he was consumed by the fire. Then he ran off screaming. So the residents said he was dead. How could anyone survive that? He was taken to the Capitol, where all his cars were erased. Then he was persuaded to go hurt Peeta. Snow had him dropped off secretly in 13, where he tried to kill Peeta but failed, thanks to Primrose Everdeen and her mother. He is now being tortured by Snow, like Peeta was in the original version of Mockingjay.**

**Now that that is all explained, let's get back to the story! Thank you for your support and patience through this non-chapter. **


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